Page:Quarterlyoforego10oreg 1.djvu/286

vineyard, and with him had borne the burden of the pioneer work. Now, however, the pioneer days were over, and DeSmet as he set sail from Portland on the 13th day of October, 1863, could bear witness to the altered aspect of the country. But with all the signs of progress about him, there was one undeniable feature of the situation which brought sadness to his heart. The Indian tribes for whom he had labored with such apostolic zeal, the children of the forest, whose wonderful dispositions for Christian faith and Christian virtue had been his consolation and his glory, were doomed. The seed of the Gospel, which he had sown, had taken root and sprung up and was blossoming forth with the promise of an abundant harvest when the blight came. The white man was in the land. The Indian envied his strength and imitated his vices and fell before both. "May heaven preserve them from the dangerous contact of the whites!" was DeSmet's last prayer for his neophytes as he bade farewell to the "Oregon Country."----